Less buzz, more bang
Consumerisation of IT will force a change to the industry's modus operandi, says David Groves
In one of the more infamous instances of 'buzz' marketing, Sony Ericsson in 2002 paid actors and actresses to hang around popular tourist spots with their fancy new cameras, asking passers-by to take pictures of them. The purpose: to provide an impromptu product demonstration extolling the virtues of the new gadget.
While most won't go to such extremes, selling a product or service by promoting just one benefit and using it to generate profit elsewhere is common.
For example, Cisco is talking about unified communications (UC), and the company spends a lot of time only talking about the video conferencing side. A reasonable assumption would be that video needs greater bandwidth, which requires more network capacity, and that means you might need a few more Cisco products.
Similarly, the mobile network providers are talking up UC, as they see it as an opportunity to sell more fixed and mobile connections. This is hardly surprising, given that, in my view, the only way for them to gain market share nowadays is to buy it off each other.
And resellers are focused on finding new ways of selling the stuff they've always sold, rather than asking the people that really count - the business users - what they want. Most users just want a way to get things done quicker and easier - and if the IT department won't provide it for them, they'll just go out and buy the technology themselves.
This leaves IT departments with a dilemma: do they try to restrict access to company information from non-approved smartphones and tablets, or do they try to enable everyone to get hold of the information they need to do their job, regardless of which of the latest snazzy devices they happen to have bought?
Given that most IT departments spend the bulk of their budgets and efforts ‘keeping the lights on' in the server room, they probably haven't even had time to think about this problem.
This, therefore, represents a threefold opportunity for the IT industry.
First, suppliers need to make it cheaper for IT departments to keep things running, by putting them on the right mobile tariffs and ensuring their telephone lines, minutes and data access are more affordable, to free up budget to spend on making their users' lives easier.
Secondly, IT departments need to start thinking carefully about how they will give and control access to corporate information, such as documents, presence and other information. This needs to happen now rather than wait until there are ten different types of devices out there among their users. If it gets to this point, the management headaches will require far more than paracetamol to relieve it.
Finally, customers need clear and objective advice on how they can make everything work in an integrated and unified way, so they can steer their users down the right route.
If we can actually help IT departments do what their users want, not simply peddle the stuff we've got on the cart, we won't be marketing 'buzz' any more.
David Groves is product manager for unified communications at Azzurri Communications
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